


Family

by jenny_wren



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 19:38:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_wren/pseuds/jenny_wren
Summary: Tony gets his own team. Probably not for TIVA-fans.





	Family

**Author's Note:**

> My post season 13 head cannon. Tony gets his own team (that is cannon when you think MW now has his own show)

Tony paused with his key in the lock to take a deep breath and let some of his weariness drop away. It had been a long day at work but that was over now until tomorrow. 

Already feeling lighter, he pushed open the door,

“Lucy, I’m ho-ome.”

There was an excited squeal of, “Daddy,” Tali pelted towards him and he grabbed her up into a hug. She was followed by Marissa, a serious-eyed English Lit postgrad and Tali’s nanny.

“I looked up that quote, Mr DiNozzo,” said Marissa, “and it’s really most inappropriate.”

“Aw c’mon, it’s a classic. Careful Tali.” He caught his daughter’s hand gently before she could smack in the eye again in her enthusiasm to greet him.

Marissa stared him with disapproval, “I am not your wife.”

“Very true,” Tony agreed cheerfully. “Neither on the show or behind the scenes.”

She stared at him for a moment longer before shaking her head, her face relaxing into the familiar ‘Mr DiNozzo is crazy but he does try’. She made Tony feel a hundred and ten in her youthful earnestness. 

“There’s pasta in the fridge with a salad for dinner,” she said, collecting her purse.

“Homemade pasta?” Tony asked because it made Marissa look at him as if he even crazier than normal. She never believed him when he told her making pasta was easy. One day, when she was fully convinced he wasn’t lining her up for the role of Mrs DiNozzo (which oh my god he wasn’t, she was a _baby_ ) he was going to convince her to accept a pasta making lesson.

“I have to go now or I’ll be late. Goodbye Tali,” she kissed her first two fingers and pressed them to Tali’s cheek as Tali giggled. “Mr DiNozzo I’ll be back by one o’clock at the latest. If I’m delayed, I’ll call.”

“Thank you.” Tony found it depressing that Marissa didn’t find his over-active cop instincts annoying but considered them to be sensible. “Tali and I will try not to have too much fun without you.”

Marissa huffed her way out of the house. One day she was going to roll her eyes at him and Tony couldn’t wait. He bounced Tali in his arms,

“C’mon shortstuff, let’s go find dinner.”

Marissa would have fed her earlier but Tali liked to eat something when Tony did. It kept him away from too easy take-outs and ensured his fruit bowl was always full. Yet one more way she saved him. His little miracle.

“Thank you Ziva,” he whispered as kissed his daughter’s curly hair, awed all over again that Ziva had trusted him with something so precious.

He hadn’t hesitated at falling in with Ziva’s last wishes, and hadn’t expected to regret it, no way could he leave Ziva’s daughter exposed as the last remaining David, but he hadn’t expected it to be such a constant source of joy.

Tali wasn’t his blood daughter, he’d always known that. There was one particular act that was required for that to be a possibility, and that had just never happened. He and Ziva had instinctively recognized the damage they shared, adding sex to the mix would have tangled everything inextricably. Not that Ziva was willing to admit her father only loved her when she was useful to him, she couldn’t even admit _Tony’s_ father only loved _him_ when he was useful. 

(And to a con man whose sins were catching up with him an LEO son was so very useful. When Tali arrived Tony’d hoped his father would step up and be a good grandpa, but had quickly realized that was him deluding himself all over again. His father was out of their lives now, no way was he exposing Tali to that sort of poison.)

Except maybe Ziva had finally accepted the devastation her father and Mossad had made of her life. Why else had she claimed Tony as the father of her own child, even going to the desperate lengths of coaching a two year old to identify a photograph.

Tony hated to think what Ziva’s last few years had been like. He wondered why she hadn’t called him for help. He’d have come for both her and Tali. 

But then she’d probably known Eli David’s daughter would never be allowed out the country. And she died protecting her father’s files and legacy instead of walking as far away from Mossad as she could. When he’d left her in Israel she’d claimed she wanted to leave being an agent and spy behind her. Had she been lying then, or was it a wistful fantasy she’d known could never come true.

Eli David’s sins had lived on to destroy the life of his last child, as it had destroyed the rest of the David family, leaving Tali as the only survivor.

Tony wondered sometimes if the director of Mossad had known Tali wasn’t Tony’s child the way Ziva claimed. Had she just wanted the David heir out the country? Was Tali’s biological father a competitor who would be able to claim some advantage by having physical control over the last David and the assets that came with her?

But that was just Tony’s investigator brain working over-time. Fundamentally he didn’t want to know. It would be too dangerous. He had signed all the property Tali inherited in Israel over to Elbaz, telling her to sell what she could and give away what she couldn’t and send him any money left over to be put in trust for Tali’s education.

Tony would have been happy just to be rid of the whole toxic inheritance without a penny in return, but Elbaz actually sent him a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which meant whatever there’d been was even more valuable than he’d guessed, and he was even more glad to be rid of it. 

Ziva had trusted him to protect her daughter and he wasn’t having either the physical or emotional legacy of the Davids hanging over Tali’s future.

Ziva had trusted him to protect her daughter and that had healed something in Tony he wasn’t aware had been broken. He could understand intellectually the need to take all your anger at the dangerous authority figures who ruled your life and aim it at someone who you knew wouldn’t hit back, but that hadn’t stopped it hurting. Worse it hadn’t even helped Ziva, not really. Making everything Tony’s fault had sent her to Somalia, and then to her death in fire and flames.

But somehow she’d kept Tali safe, and she’d sent her to Tony knowing he’d claim her as his own and protect her with his life.

And Tali had saved him too. She’d got him out from under Gibbs – he had no idea what he babbled at his ex-team in those few tense days, he’d just wanted to get away before they asked too many questions – where he’d slowly being deforming into a caricature of himself and into the FBI. He wasn’t going to leave the law enforcement world, that was the opposite of a guarantee of safety. The CIA had been interested, given his foreign ops and Mossad links. Tony had said a very firm no. He’d just got Tali out from under all that, no way was he dragging her back in.

So now he worked for the FBI as an unremarkable Supervisory agent wrangling three teams of, well on a good day they were his guys and girls and he loved every one of them, but given the day he’d just had they were all utter idiots, his idiots of course, but idiots all the same. 

One of his conditions of joining up had been a very obvious paternity confirmed test appended to his personal file in relation to Tali. He’d also had her name changed and he was hopeful Tayla David would vanish and only Talia DiNozzo would remain. When Tali was old enough to want to know more about her mother’s family, hopefully the Davids would be a spent force in Israeli politics. He didn’t want his daughter growing up missing half her heritage. One day maybe it would even be safe enough for her to visit Israel, but that was a hope for far in the future.

For now it was him and Tali, pasta (even if it wasn’t homemade) and a movie. He settled on the sofa, Tali snuggled into his side, bowl of apple slices held carefully on her lap, and clicked play.


End file.
